I recently tested a Premium WordPress theme, that I have had my eye on for awhile, the theme is named WPRemix. Besides I had heard so much about Remix that my curiosity had finally gotten the better of me. The purchase price $75.00 for a single use license was in line with most other themes also claiming to be “Premium”.
 
At the home site for WPRemix the marketing hype makes some pretty bold claims, that I was eager to put to the test. Here is the main tagline’s claim to potential customers:
 

Bundled with more than 50 strategically designed & coded custom static page templates, the theme enables everyone to publish small sites in minutes saving weeks of time and maintain top notch standards-compliant quality.”

50 Different templates

50 templates, that’s right 10 Home Pages, 20 Inner site Pages, 5 Gallery type pages, 5 product pages and 5 miscellaneous specialty pages. If you do the math, that comes to actually 45 pages. with some fudging of the numbers, I guess you could also include a Blog Page which WordPress creates and a Contact page which  a plug-in might also create bringing the template count up to 47 total, still shy 3+ templates of “more than 50″.
 
Though technically not pages, the theme also ships with 4 headers, 6 sidebars and an optional footer. If you counted these additional files the total template count rises to 57. This small caveat is only an observation that I made and not so critical a point considering that most other WordPress themes come with only a “Home” page and a “Blog” page. The shear number of templates that Remix includes is where it’s true strength lies. It’s not just the number of templates, but the careful selection and design that went into them.
 
As you study the templates closely, the subtle considerations that went into the layout and extensive CSS cross-browser compliant styling becomes apparent. With Remix it is difficult to create a new page style or design that has not already been included. This translates directly into a shorter site development time when creating new websites. The diversity and flexibility of the CSS styling is as if someone poured out a large box of “LEGO” parts on the floor in front of you from which anything imaginable could be created. Anyone that has designed more than a few websites will tell you to never re-invent the wheel. Cutting and pasting CSS snippets of code here and there is common practice when coming up with new site designs.
 
Because WordPress provides a WYSIWYG visual design tab under which to work, a false sense of simplicity can develop for those who know little of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). And this as it turns out is the biggest complaint regarding the Remix theme. However, it is all a matter of perspective as to how valid this complaint is. WordPress by default fosters an industry attitude that anyone who can read and type can design a website. This simply is not true, otherwise there wouldn’t be an HTML tab just to the right of the visual tab in the WordPress editor. Obviously as human beings we all tend to ask for more than we can digest once we gain enough knowledge to be dangerous.

Anyone who expects to be adding rich media such as audio and video to their sites in WordPress should also be prepared to get their feet wet with at least a basic understanding of CSS and HTML. I have seen discussions on the support forum mention that the theme is better suited for experienced developers. I don’t entirely agree with this statement. If you use the theme templates as they are, without imagining all sorts of things you would like to do but don’t possess the knowledge to accomplish, a perfectly presentable professional website can be created by most end users. Still, The theme is a great time saver for those who understand CSS and a bit more daunting for those who may need to brush up on their CSS and HTML.
 
Of course, all of the standard bells and whistles one would expect to find are present and accounted for in the functionality of the Remix theme. RSS Feeds, Subscribe by FeedBurner email forms, sharing and bookmarking, a site search field, Testimonials and much more. There are unique specialty pages that provide for tabbed and slider presentation of information. You will be hard pressed to imagine much more than has already been thought of in Remix.

One last important observation regarding this theme is, Remix is the only theme that currently offers a “Website” with a “Blog”. When you check out other themes you will notice that they will typically only have a “Landing/Home” page and a “Blog” page. I have designed sites using Remix that have actually been “De-Blogged”, as stand-alone websites. This capability alone, should give even the most discerning potential customer a reason to look at Remix a bit closer, before making any other theme purchase.
 

Support Forum

Finally, the Remix theme has a support forum which stands behind the product. I found the forum support a bit different than most other forums. It seems to be modeled more after a private technical support forum than an open discussion format where any and everything is discussed. This has never prevented me from getting answers to my questions regarding the theme. I actually observed response times of less than an hour in many instances when a question had been asked. I noticed that the moderator will tactfully redirect you to support links if you do not ask questions directly related to the theme, i.e., do not expect to get support for setting up Google Analytics at the Remix forum.
 
For anyone looking to shorten website design time and the most bang for the buck, you might want to check out the Remix theme. It is long on choices and options and maybe a bit longer on learning curve as well. But for those willing to learn a little CSS and HTML, the return on the investment is well worth the effort.

• Visit WPRemix WordPress Theme Business Solution

How much time and money do you spend designing and creating sites? Have you ever tried to build a membership site – then you know the extremely irksome problems with plugins that never seem to work or are simply incompatible with your theme. If you’re like most marketers, you’d spent ages and incurring expensive costs (and nervous system) to design and create your Internet marketing sites.

Here’s what’s probably happening:

1. You either try to design and create sites yourself
2. Or you outsource them to a designer and/or programmer

And the results are:

1. Typically results in poor quality, since you’re not a designer to begin with.
2. Usually costs you quite a bit of money.

Both first and second solution take quite some time to finish. You might say that the second solution is fast since you outsource the work to professionals who know what they’re doing. But the problem is – you are not their only customer; they have a dozen other customers to serve, plus the back and forth communication between you and them means it’s going to take some time for your site to be completed to your liking.

So what’s a marketer to do?

There is a faster solution – Profits WP Theme

In the video presentation below you can see how simple and fast you can build a membership site with this theme. And it is cheaper too, compared with the two time consuming and expensive solutions above (do it yourself, or outsource to a designer).

Click here to view the embedded video.

With this WordPress theme you can create a protected, multi-level membership site (it can also drip-feed content), product launch pages, one-time-offer pages, sales pages, squeeze pages, legal pages, thank you pages, and more in mere minutes – and why make it more complicated than it is?

• Demo Profits WP Theme
• Download Profits WP Theme

Photography is fun. Interesting. Sometimes even rewarding. More and more people begin to realize that, and the opportunity’s Internet offers to showcase their photo creations. And WordPress is an excellent platform to showcase photos – because of the flexibility and well documented stability, and the huge amount of specialized plugins and themes.

To set up a photo gallery on WordPress you could use some of those nice gallery plugins – or, by using a specialized gallery or photo blogging theme, sometimes simply referred to as Multi Media Themes. Whatever solution you prefer, you sure will have a huge and very exciting selection to choose from – it shouldn’t be a problem to find a photoblog solution that suits you exactly as you wish.

Cashrevelations presents six WordPress photoblog solutions that are free and relatively easy to set up even if you know more about photo than WordPress or blogging.

3 WordPress Photo Plugins

Plugins is a good solution if you don’t feel for changing the appearance of your WordPress blog. There is a lot to choose from, but we would like to mention these three. We could also have mention Cincopa For WordPress, an excellent media plugin – but there could be some fees involved. The Best WordPress Gallery Plugins is a nice post that offers you some reviews and guidance of a few more good WordPress photo gallery plugins.

Yet Another Photoblog
This is a non invasive and handy plugin that will convert your WordPress blog into a full featured photoblog. Easy image upload and on the fly thumbnail generation, self-learning EXIF filter (your cameras tags can be viewed) are some of the features of this plugin.
View Demo

oQey Gallery
oQey Gallery is a Plugin for WordPress that lets users create and manage flash slideshows with a non-flash version of gallery built-in for all non-flash browsers and mobile devices like iPhone / iPad / iPod etc. It has a built-in skinnable slideshow and supports music.
View Demo

NextGEN Gallery
NextGEN Gallery is a full integrated Image Gallery plugin for WordPress with a slideshow option. You can add custom templates for your theme and watermark images – the plugin offers you lots of options that will make it easier for you to get a gallery after your taste.
View Demo

3 WordPress Photoblog Themes

To say there is a lot of WordPress themes is an understatement. There is a little bit less good photo-blogging themes, but still a huge amount – and since the WordPress platform is so flexible, you can with some basic coding skills easily adapt almost any WP theme for photo blogging. We feature these three, because these three represent an adequate and good alternative and also because we think they are not so well known.

Autofocus+
This is a simple and cleanly designed WP theme especially developed for photographers. Theme options that enable you to customize elements of the theme without touching code. This photo blogging theme comes in a free or paid version.
View Demo

Grace
Grace is a contemporary and minimalistic photoblog theme for WordPress – the calm color scheme and big frame put your photos right at the center of the blog and the viewers attention. To use the theme you have to change a few settings on your WP blog.
View Demo

Foto Folio
This is an easy to use and stylish WordPress portfolio theme for photographers, or others interested to showcase their visual works – this light WP theme has Jquery and automatic resize integrated for Featured Photos and Image Previews.
View Demo

All three themes are free for download without any previous registration and released under GPL license. For more information about GPL license: A Quick Guide to GPLv3.

Head Image: Joanna Margueritte

Magz is yet another beautiful and free WordPress magazine theme created by the San Diego (USA) based AJ Clarke from WPExplorer. It is something so very unusual as a dark cleanly designed WP theme – completely without those design excesses you for some strange reason often find on dark blogging themes.

The Magz WP themes appearance is effective and modern – and presents your content in an appealingly beneficial way. According to the theme designer, the Magz WP theme is intended for all sorts of blogging and news sites.

Magz Theme Features

This is a summary of features of The Magz magazine theme, for more detailed information and updates you can visit the Magz theme download page.

• WordPress 3.0+ Compatible
• Full Width Style Design
• Popular Posts With Thumbs
• Extended Footer Section (optional)
• Theme Panel
• Tracking Code Integration
• Gravatar Supported

Magz Theme Download And Preview

Magz theme is released under GPL license. It can be used for all your projects for free and without any restrictions and you may modify the theme as you wish – you can read more about the license at A Quick Guide to GPLv3.

• Preview Magz Free WordPress Theme
• Download Magz Free WordPress Theme

As the HTML5 standard slowly but surely approaches, the demand for HTML5 compatible WordPress themes increase – already now you can find a somewhat impressing collection of HTML5 coded WordPress themes if you do a Google search. In this short article we would like present three HTML5 WordPress themes we think deserve some attention.

On 14 February 2011 W3C extended the charter of its HTML Working Group with clear milestones. The Group is expected to advance HTML5 to “Last Call” in May 2011.

3 HTML5 Coded WordPress Themes

Temple Gate by Lotus Seeds Design
Temple Gate is a two column and fixed width, beautifully styled WP theme. According to the developer, the light design is inspired by the spirituality of Japanese Temple Gates.
Demo

Retro Stripes by ThemePals
Retro Stripes is a two column and fixed width, blog styled and light WordPress theme – intended for bloggers, designers and photographers. Earlier featured on Cashrevelations.
Demo

Photoly 2011 by Premium Like Themes
Photoly 2011 is an easy to use two column and fixed width (900px) WordPress gallery theme with a light and cleanly designed appearance. Earlier featured on Cashrevelations.
Demo

All three themes are free for download without any previous registration and released under GPL license. For more information about GPL license: A Quick Guide to GPLv3.

Shopkeeper is a free, two column and fixed width e-commerce WordPress theme designed by Madoido for DukaPress. The theme is based on the no longer maintained Journalist WP theme by Lucian E. Marin – and it offers a refreshing clean and minimalistic environment to showcase your arsenal of different e-commerce products.

The theme is designed to work with the DukaPress e-Commerce Plugin for WordPress – and it is a good alternative if you want to build up an online shop, especially if you are familiar with CSS and HTML coding. The code did not pass as valid CSS or HTML during our validation test, but many of the errors are relatively easy to correct and the theme also works like it should even with these errors.

DukaPress e-Commerce WordPress Plugin

DukaPress plugin is an open source e-commerce solution built for the WordPress platform that can be used to easily build online shops. According to the developers (Nairobi based Nickel Pro), DukaPress is built to be both simple and elegant yet powerful and scalable.

The plugin has an impressive (especially considering that it is a free software) range of useful features like regular mode or catalog mode, related products, several payment or delivery options and more. DukaPress also has some premium addons in their assortment.

• Download DukaPress on WordPress

ShopKeeper WP Theme Features

This is a summary of features of The ShopKeeper WordPress e-Commerce theme, for more information and updates you can visit the ShopKeeper download page on DukaPress.

• WordPress 3.0 Compatible
• DukaPress Compatible
• 2 Column Layout
• Widget Ready Sidebar
• Custom Template To Show Products In Categories Automatically

ShopKeeper WP Theme Download And Preview

ShopKeeper e-Commerce theme is released under GPL license. It can be used for all your projects for free and without any restrictions and you may modify the theme as you wish – you can read more about the license at A Quick Guide to GPLv3.

• ShopKeeper WordPress e-Commerce Theme Demo
• ShopKeeper WordPress e-Commerce Theme Download

Retro Stripes by ThemePals is a new two column and fixed width, blog styled and light WordPress theme – intended for bloggers, designers and photographers. The theme consequently has portfolio options and a refreshing design that fits well for those categories of users, or others who enjoy modern and youthful appearances.

The Retro Stripes theme options page is very basic – according to the developers, new features will be added in a near future. But it does offer header and footer insert for custom shortcodes or HTML. You can see a preview of the theme options page below.

• Preview Retro Stripes Theme Options Page

One interesting thing with Retro Stripe theme is how it is coded – in pure and valid HTML5 and CSS3 (the next and very anticipated revision of the HTML and CSS standards).

Retro Stripes Theme Features

This is a summary of features of The Retro Stripes WordPress blogging and portfolio theme, for more information and updates you can visit the Retro Stripes download page.

• WordPress 3.0 Compatible
• jQuery Featured Post Slider
• Dynamic Image Sizing
• Gravatar Supported
• Twitter Integration
• Theme Options Page

Retro Stripes Theme Download And Preview

Retro Stripes theme is released under GPL license. It can be used for all your projects for free and without any restrictions and you may modify the theme as you wish – you can read more about the license at A Quick Guide to GPLv3.

• Retro Stripes WordPress Theme Demo
• Retro Stripes WordPress Theme Download

Photoly 2011 by Premium Like Themes is a new easy to use two column and fixed width (900px) WordPress gallery theme with a light and cleanly designed appearance. Photoly 2011 theme is suitable for photo blogs and for showcasing of images in a clean but yet stylish environment. It offers a bit unusual design compared with normal gallery themes.

This is a pure gallery theme and if you are a huge fanatic of widgets this is not a theme for you (unless you are an experienced WordPress coder) since there is no widget areas at all, but as an easy to handle and attractive showcase of images it works very well.

The Photoly theme options page is very basic – you can change logo image, Favicon, add your Twitter and Facebook profile URLs and change copyright text. In future versions of the theme options page, perhaps it would be a good idea to add a footer insert (custom shortcodes or HTML) where it is for example possible to place Google Analytics code. You can see a preview of the theme options page below.

• Preview Photoly 2011 Theme Options Page

The Photoly 2011 WordPress Gallery theme by Premium Like Themes is coded in HTML5.

Photoly 2011 Theme Features

This is a summary of features of The Photoly 2011 WordPress gallery theme, for even more information and updates you can visit the Photoly 2011 download page.

• WordPress 3.0 Compatible
• WordPress Featured Images
• Thumbnail & Standard Image Sizes
• Custom Logo & Favicon
• Basic Twitter & Facebook Integration
• Theme Options Page

Photoly 2011 Theme Download And Preview

Photoly 2011 theme is released under GPL license. It can be used for all your projects for free and without any restrictions and you may modify the theme as you wish – you can read more about the license at A Quick Guide to GPLv3.

• Photoly 2011 WordPress Theme Demo
• Photoly 2011 WordPress Theme Download

Big Square by Wordspop is a new and cleanly designed two column WordPress photoblog theme with a light appearance. This theme is suitable for dedicated photographers, both amateurs and professionals with a tight Internet and marketing budget.

This theme is quite basic and doesn’t offer the flexibility of the WP themes we reviewed before – there is for example not a theme options page. But all this is not necessarily a bad thing – simplicity is never wrong and for some users, especially WP beginners, this could be a welcome relief from the increasingly extensive usual theme options tweaking.

The theme is nice and has proper design, and it sure does what it is supposed to do – presents your images in a visually appealing way, and the simplicity makes it easy to use.

Big Square WordPress theme is WP 3.0 compatible and you can download it for free.

Big Square Theme Download And Preview

Big Square theme is released under GPL license. It can be used for all your projects for free and without any restrictions and you may modify the theme as you wish – you can read more about the license at A Quick Guide to GPLv3.

• Big Square WordPress Theme Demo
• Big Square WordPress Theme Download

Now and then it happens that those professional theme creators, with all those cool WP themes, release some free premium-like WordPress themes (or free and lighter versions of their premium themes). Although there is a lot of nice themes you can download for free, those free premium releases offer you something more. A more mature or complete, and measured solution of your WordPress theme requirements.

In this article we take a look at 3 free releases of professionally designed premium (or premium-like) WordPress themes by respected and highly skillful designers in the field.

Update 011711: The SketchPad WordPress theme is not available for free anymore.

All themes presented in this article are WordPress 3.0 compatible.

3 Free Premium WordPress Themes

BreakingNewz by ThemeWarrior
BreakingNewz is a complete magazine style WordPress theme by the newly established (July 2010) ThemeWarrior, with features like front page slider, 3 color schemes and an impressive theme options page. The free version of this theme has not any type of support and documentation, which can be a problem with an advanced theme like this – but if you already have some experience from WordPress themes since before and a bit of patience, this is absolutely good option if you like magazine style themes.

SketchPad by ThemeSheep
SketchPad by ThemeSheep is a two column theme with ten colors schemes and extensive customization options – including very flexible and impressive post layout options for the home page that allow you to choose how your home page posts are arranged. The option pages of the theme allow close enough all of the themes major options to be pretty easily changed. Some support are provided through the ThemeSheep community. As the other themes in this article, also this WordPress theme has a clean and proper design.

Kreera by BizzArtic
The cleanly designed Kreera theme by BizzArtic, is an advanced WP theme to showcase your portfolio of products. According to the designer, it embraces all the best features WP 3.0 has to offer – including elegant menus, automatic feeds, multi-site ready, Google fonts and many more options available from the extensive theme options page. Even if this theme is advanced, it is still relatively easy to use with an intuitive and practical admin section – and it is also one of favorites because of the quality in the design.

All the WordPress themes above are very well designed with advanced features that are normally missing in more average themes. Thatsway, you really should take some time, take a look, and consider if they could be a good theme solution for you.